Category: gay photography

Clarity of Water

Photographer Unknown, (The Clarity of Water)

“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion 

Calendar: November 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of November

Pale Skin and Leather

November 14, 1922 was the birthdate of American actress Veronica Lake.

Born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in the Borough of Brooklynn, Veronica Lake moved to Miami, Florida with her family and attended Miami High School. In 1938 the family moved to Beverly Hills, California, where she was briefly under contract to MGM. Lake enrolled in MGM’s acting school, the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting, and soon went to an audition at RKO studio. She later appeared in the 1939 play “Thought for Food” and had a small role in “She Made Her Bed”.

Veronica Lake appeared as an extra in a number of movies. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO in the 1939 co-ed film “Sorority House”, which wound up being cut from the film. Lake was given similar roles in “All Women Have Secrets” “Forty Little Mothers” and “Dancing Co-Ed”. Producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. from Paramount Pictures decided to give her a chance in the role of a nightclub singer in a military drama entitled “I Wanted Wings”, released in 1940. This role made Veronica Lake, still in her teens, a star.

It was during the filming of “I Wanted Wings” that Veronica Lake developed her signature look. Lake’s long blonde hair accidentally fell over her right eye during a take and created a peek-a-boo effect. After the film was a big hit, the hairstyle became Lakes’s trademark and inspired women to copy it. Paramount next cast Lake in Preston Sturges’s “Sullivan’s Travels” with Joel McCrea. Next came the 1942 thriller “This Gun for Hire” with Robert Preston and Alan Ladd. She and Alan Ladd both had cameos in the all-star Paramount film “Star Spangled Rhythm” in 1942.

During World War II, Veronica Lake became popular as a pin-up girl for soldiers and traveled throughout the United States raising money for war bonds. Lake’s career began to falter after her portrayal as a Nazi spy in the 1944 “The Hour Before the Dawn”. Diagnosed early in her life with schizophrenia, Lake, after receiving scathing reviews, began drinking more heavily during this period, prompting many actors to refuse to work with her. After some time off, Lake was brought back in the 1945 “Bring On the Girls”, her first proper musical.

Veronica Lake made more movies between 1947 and 1951: a western “Ramrod” in 1947; the 1948 “Saigon” which reunited her with actor Alan Ladd; a romantic drama “Isn’t It Romantic” and a comedy “The Sainted Sisters”, both in 1948 and not well received by audiences. In 1948 Paramount decided not to renew Veronica Lake’s contract. After that, she performed in two more films in minor roles, was a television host for a brief stint and performed in summer stock theater.

In June of 1972, Veronica lake visited a doctor complaining of stomach pains. She was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver as a result of her years of drinking and was admitted on June 26 to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington. She died there on July 7, 1973 of acute hepatitis and acute kidney injury. Veronica Lake was cremated and her ashes scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. For her contributions to the film industry, Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard.

Calendar: November 13

A Year: Day to Day Men: 13th of November

Blackwork and Cigarette

November 13, 1850 was the birthdate of author Robert Louis Stevenson.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a noted lighthouse builder and harbor engineer. Though healthy at birth, Stevenson soon became a victim of constant breathing problems that later developed into tuberculosis. These persistent health problems made him extremely thin and weak most of his life.

By the time Stevenson entered Edinburgh University at the age of sixteen, he had fallen under the spell of language and had begun to write. For several years, he attended classes irregularly, developing a bohemian existence. At the age of twenty-one, he openly declared his intention of becoming a writer, against the strong opposition of his father. Having traveled to the European mainland several times for health and pleasure, he now traveled between Scotland and a growing circle of artistic and literary friends in London and Paris.

Stevenson’s first book, “An Inland Voyage” published in 1878, related his adventures during a canoe trip on Belgium and France’s canals. In 1879, Stevenson stayed in an abandoned mining camp in the United States, later recounted in the 1883 “The Silverado Squatters”. A year later, he was back in Scotland; however, the climate in Scotland proved to be a severe hardship on his health. Stevenson and his wife soon moved and lived in Switzerland and the south of France. Despite his health, these years proved to be productive. The stories Stevenson collected at that time, ranging from detective stories to Scottish dialect tales, were published as “The New Arabian Nights” and “The Merry Men”.

“Treasure Island”, first published as a series in a children’s magazine, ranks as Stevenson’s first popular book, and it established his fame. A perfect romance, according to Stevenson’s formula, the novel tells the story of a boy’s involvement with murderous pirates. “Kidnapped” published in 1886, set in Scotland during a time of great civil unrest, has the same charm. In the 1886 “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde”, Stevenson dealt directly with the nature of evil in man and the hideous effects that occur when man seeks to deny it. This work pointed the way toward Stevenson’s more serious later novels.

In 1889 Stevenson and his family set out on a cruise of the South Sea Islands. When it became clear that only there could he live in relatively good health, he settled on the island of Upolu in Samoa. He bought a plantation, built a house, and gained influence with the natives, who called him Tusifala or “teller of tales”. By the time of his death on December 3, 1894, Stevenson had become a significant figure in island affairs. His observations on Samoan life were published in the 1896 collection “In the South Seas” and in the 1892 “A Footnote to History”.

Fernando Pessoa: “The First Property of Things is Motion” (Part One)

Tattoo Art in Motion: Part One

“Our problem isn’t that we’re individualists. It’s that our individualism is static rather than dynamic. We value what we think rather than what we do. We forget that we haven’t done, or been, what we thought; that the first function of life is action, just as the first property of things is motion.”

― Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic

Calendar: November 12

A Year: Day to Day Men: 12th of November

Bravery

November 12, 1920 was the birthdate of American B-western film star Sunset Carson.

Born Winifred Maurice Harrison, Sunset Carson became an accomplished rodeo rider in his youth, working for a time in a western show owned by early cowboy actor Tom Mix. In 1940, Carson traveled to South America, where he competed in rodeos for two years. After he returned to the States, he appeared in a small role in the 1943 “Stage Coast Canteen”, a film featuring many celebrities of that time. In the next year, Carson had a role in the 1944 film “Janie”, under the name of Michael Harrison.

Carson caught the attention of Lou Grey, an executive of Republic Pictures, who signed him to a contract, giving him his own series of B-westerns and the stage name of Sunset Carson. He was given a horse named “Cactus” and had a succession of popular western genre films. Carson was in the 1944 “Bordertown Trail”, followed in the same year by “Code of the Prarie” and “Firebrands of Arizona”, playing opposite comic western actor Smiley Burnette.

Sunset Carson’s peak year was in 1945, appearing in seven western films. He appeared in his own name in “Sheriff of Cimarron”, “Bandits of the Badlands”. “The Cherokee Flash”, and four other hour-long films. Carson began the year of 1946 strong, starring in five films including “The El Paso Kid” and “The Red River Renegades”. By the end of 1946, however, Republic Pictures and Carson were having disputes. Carson claimed it was over his contract; the studio claimed that Carson was fired after attending a studio function while intoxicated and accompanied by an underage girl. At the end of the year, he and the studio parted company.

In 1948, Sunset Carson starred in “Sunset Carson Rides Again” produced by Oliver Drake. In 1949 he starred in “Rio Grande” and in 1950 the film “Battling Marshal”, his last role as the main character. For the next several years, Carson just obtained small bit parts. He played the lead once again in the B-movie “The Marshall of Windy Hollow”, a 1972 that costarred many old-time western actors. Then Carson had bit parts in two movies during the next thirteen years: “Buckstone County Prison” in 1978 and the 1985 sci-fi “Alien Outlaw”, his final movie role.

Sunset Carson retired to Reno, Nevada and died in a Reno hospital on May 1, 1990 of an apparent heart attack. He died one day after winning a settlement in a three-year old lawsuit over money earned from some of his old films.

Note: The image above is reblogged with many thanks to a great instagram site that I follow, having a “green thumb” and an inclination towards hot guys. The site is https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/boyswithplants.

Calendar: November 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of November

Natural State of the Wilderness

November 11, 1868 was the birthdate of French painter Jean-Édouard Vuillard.

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux, France, where he spent his youth until his family in 1878 moved to Paris. At the age of sixteen, he received a scholarship to continue his education. Vuillard attended the Lycée Condorcet, one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and the most prestigious. There he met Ker Xavier Roussel, a fellow artist who became a friend, Maurice Denis, the musician Pierre Hermant, and the writer Pierre Verber.

Vuillard left the Lycée Condorcet in 1885, and on the advice of his closest friend Roussel, he refused military service; he then joined Roussel at the studio of painter Diogene Maillart to study painting. Vuillard studied also at both the Académie Julian and the L’École des Beaux-Arts in the period between 1886 and 1888.

In 1890, after meeting the avant-garde painters Pierre Bonnard and Paul Sérusier, Vuillard joined Les Nabis, a group of art students inspired by the synthetism of Henri Paul Gauguin. Vuillard contributed to the exhibitions of the group and shared a studio with Bonnard and Maurice Denis, whose later work was associated with the Symbolist movement.

After traveling around Europe and painting, Vuillard had his first exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1901 and, two years later, had an exhibition at the first annual Salon d’Automne in Paris. This massive exhibition was a reaction against the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon and received wide support from artists such as Renoir, Matisse, and Auguste Rodin. After this Vuillard received many commissions for his paintings and graphics.

Jean-Édouard Vuillard painted his first decorative frescoes for the house of Mme Desmarais in 1892. He later fulfilled many other commissions of this kind, leading up to more prominent works; the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913; the Palais de Chailot in Paris, which he executed with Pierre Bonnard in 1937; and in 1939 the Palais des Nations in Geneva, working with fellow artists Roussel, Denis, and Chastel.

On November 13, 2017, “Misia et Vallotton à Villeneuve” painted in 1899 became the most valuable Vuillard sold at auction when it achieved $17.75 million at Christie’s. It is now in a private collection.